“Why Mosquitoes Are the Deadliest Animals in the World: The Shocking Truth”

Jakarta –

This animal is not as savage as a lion that can tear the flesh of its prey or like a venomous snake, but the mosquito has been named the deadliest animal in the world.

Reported detikInetThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) mentions that mosquitoes are called the deadliest animals because they are estimated to have killed 500 thousand to more than one million people per year. The main reason why mosquitoes are so deadly is because they are vectors of diseases, particularly malaria.

“Malaria has been ravaging human populations for so long,” said disease ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in Millbrook, New York, Shannon LaDeau. Live Science.

He revealed that malaria is caused by a single-celled parasitic organism in the genus Plasmodium, carried from person to person by the Anopheles mosquito. While the disease is rare in North America and Europe, it is common in parts of Africa, southern Asia, and South America, according to Our World in Data.

According to the World Health Organization, malaria will cause around 619 deaths in 2021 worldwide. This disease is generally treatable with accessible health care.

But for people at high risk, such as toddlers, pregnant women, and people with immune deficiencies such as HIV/AIDS, getting malaria can be very serious and have severe consequences. According to WHO, about 80% of all malaria deaths in Africa occur in children under 5 years of age.

Mosquitoes also spread a variety of other diseases, including dengue, chikungunya, West Nile virus, Zika virus and the parasitic infection lymphatic filariasis.

“So why are mosquitoes so effective at spreading disease? First, female mosquitoes suck blood, meaning they easily transfer pathogens from one person’s bloodstream to another. They are also small and winged, meaning they can spread easily and bite people without being noticed.” ,” LaDeau explained.

Then, there’s the fact that we share ecosystems and resources. Mosquitoes rely on water to reproduce, just as humans rely on water to live, meaning we tend to live in the same places.

“We can’t completely cut ourselves off from the habitat they need,” LaDeau said.

Even so, there are ways to reduce the risk of mosquito-borne diseases. Even small infrastructure updates can make a big difference, notes LaDeau. For example, window screens can help keep mosquitoes out and plumbing can keep water out of an open pond.

Such facilities have kept malaria at bay in many parts of the world with better infrastructure. In areas without these facilities, mosquito nets can help keep insects from invading the bed.

These precautions can also protect against other mosquito-borne diseases, such as dengue fever, which kills tens of thousands of people each year. However, public health efforts against the mosquito-borne disease face an uphill battle under climate change.

“As the Earth warms further, these diseases could start to spread to new areas if the local environment starts to become more hospitable to these pathogens and the mosquitoes that carry them,” said Andy MacDonald, a disease ecologist at the University of California Santa Barbara.

However, mosquitoes are not the only very deadly animals on our planet. According to the WHO, snakes kill between 81,000 and 138,000 people every year, making them one of the deadliest animals to humans. Additionally there is rabies, a disease spread by the bite of an infected mammal (usually a dog), killing around 59,000 people each year.

Other animals, such as freshwater snails and killer bugs, also spread diseases that are potentially lethal to humans such as schistosomiasis and Chagas disease, each of which kills thousands of people every year.

This article has been published on detikInet. Read more here.

(wip/iqk)